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10:15 am: A co-worker is washing the blue chest plates used to teach CPR. He keeps repeating under his breath, “Die. Die. Die.” I am unsure if he is speaking to the chest plates or me.

He suggests we take a coffee break. I agree. The coffee tastes bad.

10:25 am: Reading the paper. All the CD Reviews have got three stars. I think somebody is not being critical enough.

12:08 pm: Hair cut. Hairdresser tells a story about his friend’s new cabin. It used to belong to the town dentist. In the basement, they found dozens of jars of teeth the dentist got from his patients. As a bonus, the haircut turned out pretty well.

3:50 pm: I realize the future predicted in the Robert Zemeckis film Back to the Future II is five years away. Hear that Science? Where’s my hoverboard?

3:07 pm: “Unfriend” Barack Obama on Facebook.

3:15 pm: Watch a young viking in a bandana enter the vestibule of my office building, presumably to discuss car insurance. Muse for a moment how out of step I am with other members of my generation. Suspect it is mostly because I use words like vestibule.

5:58 pm: Arrive at where I am house sitting. Find a pile of cash on top of a sheet of instructions. A bottle of Wild Turkey has been left for me.

8:14 pm: After many glasses of Wild Turkey, I consider my options. Couch or the public. I grab another glass of bourbon and my rain-jacket.

9:15 pm: I wait for the bus and look at the house where my great grandparents lived. The house has long since been sold.

9:35 pm: Reminded that I am in dangerous territory. Fell or something. Obviously not important.

9:40 pm: There is a girl, no older than 16 riding the train with a mess of groceries in her arms. I feel for her. I glance for her on the platform. She is gone. Like she never existed.

9:45 pm: I see a train. I wonder if the time it takes to reach the platform is enough time for a couple truly in love, to finish a orgasm. Counting the seconds, I decided “maybe.”

9:55 pm: The bus driver and passengers are plotting. There are dozens of balloons. The driver runs out and places the balloons on the hood of a near-by car. It takes ages.

1:55 am: Back at home after the club. Hazy memories. Saw some bands. Talked to some people perhaps. Don’t remember. Ate lots of midnight pizza.

This year is the year. Come March 17, I won’t fall for the old “your shoelaces are untied” a second time. Nah, this year I’m stylin’ velcro and you’ll have plenty of time to scope out my snazzy kicks while I’m shaking you upside down, emptying your pockets of their gold and Lucky Charms.

I’ve been practicing my Leprechaun freezing stare, boning up on Leprechaun reverse-psychology and I’ve been running the scenario over and over in my brain.

I remember one year, I thought I’d done it, I was elated, I’d finally caught one of you mangy buggers.

I’d gone to take out the garbage, noticed some suspicious movement by one of the bins, went to investigate and saw a tiny little bearded humanoid.

“Ha! Finally!” I screamed. “Take me to your gold! You can’t move while I stare at you cobbler!”

I was devastated. A quick look at its grease-stained, tiny blue jeans and miniature leather jacket with accompanying pompadour confirmed he was surely not a leprechaun. It got me very smashed on its mystical wine as a consolation. But I could tell the it did it so out of pity and not camaraderie.

The clock says the time is 3:06 A.M. It’s not 3:06 A.M. I know the correct time is 2:06 a.m.

I stayed up tonight to watch the magical hour of two o’clock disappear because some people in suits (probably men) decided it would save on energy and make people generally more productive. This was decided a long time ago when most people lived on farms. I’m understand this.

The problem is this year Daylight Savings Time kicks in three weeks early and leaves a week later than usual. Some people might say, “Fergis, it’s going to happen sooner or later. Why not suck it up and get up early?”

Sleep is incredibly precious to me. When I have problems sleeping I mope around the letter-writing shack all day, nursing bourbon on ice, sometimes rocking gently back and forth. Rational thought is difficult. Writing is impossible. An extra month of daylight savings will undoubtably throw me into a foul funk that will render me a terrible individual to be around (more so than usual).

It is not surprising I’ve chosen to boycott the change. I’ll set my clock forward three weeks from now. Until then I’ll go to work at the correct time…my co-workers will be exactly one hour early as far as I’m concerned.

Please reader, join me in the wonderous fields of reality. That hour didn’t disappear. It was simply ignored by the greedheads that rule the world from their frozen castle in Antarctica. Boycott the new Daylight Savings Regime!

I’m not sure how to say this…but I think we need to take a look at our relationship. Valentine’s Day is probably not the best time to sort out our issues but after last night I don’t think I can go on. My family doctor insisted on it actually.

Did you know a bite from a human is extremely dirty? People’s mouths are filled with germs. A bite from a person is likely to become infected if not treated right away. I’ve needed to learn these sorts of things after I started dating you.

It’s weird, but I seem to find large portions of my flesh missing from my body when I wake up in the morning after we’ve gone out drinking. It hurts to take off and put on clothes when there is open wounds on your arms and chest.

Another thing: I used feel flattered at your continuous mention of my intellect. You’d always be talking about my “brains…brains” while you gnawed on my neck. I’m not that smart. But I’m smart enough to know when to end it.

It was funny of you to lock me up in a poorly-lit room and force me to sleep nearly 23 hours a day. I don’t hold it against you. There is nothing like ringing in a fresh year with a 16 day hibernation. When I woke up I recalled the start of 2006…apparently I made notes:

Annotated Predictions for 2006:

1. Sale of post-Apocalyptic goggles increases.

My sources tell me this is true. It makes sense…nobody wants to get Mad Max-sand in their eyes while they are trading handjobs for water.

2. George W. sprouts horns and a tail in front of the Washington press Corp. The White House turns red.

Well…George had a rough year. On Jan. 11, 2007 he said the best way to get troops out of Iraq was to order another 21,500 in to Iraq. The he sprouted horns and a tail and spat fireballs at the Washington journalists. However, that was in 2007…so it doesn’t count.

3. Another season of Survivor goes unnoticed.

Is Survivor even on television anymore?

4. Dr. Phil is charged with having sex with a goat.

Is Dr. Phil even on television anymore?

5. That goat is Michael Jackson.

What Dr. Phil and Michael Jackson do with each other under the influence of Pinot Noir and pretty sunsets is their business as far as the public is concerned.

6. China lands on the moon and immediately sets up the first sweatshop in space. It makes American flags.

Turns out the first sweatshop in space makes zero-gravity Mardi Gras beads.

7. I run as a Green party candidate in the next Canadian federal election. The next election will be called as soon as the results of the last election (Jan.23) are returned. I lose to a Conservative moose named Curtis Taxless.

So far—no election. Conservative moose have heavily fortified their interests during incumbency. My chances of election are bleak.

8. Google will start a micronation in the South Pacific. They threaten to remove their search engine from the web unless the UN recognizes their sovereignty. Google-opia is born as Kofi Annan is an avid gmail user.

Sadly YouTube got to it first. It’s pixelated and sort of boring to watch…unless a person is at work.

9. This is the best post of the year.

There were a couple good ones. I like the one about Finola Hackett. She’s spell-tastic.

10. A new style of hat is invented called the trout-stick.

I invented this. I wear it around the house. The prototype needs some work.

This Christmas Eve I find myself in a basement with a nearly empty bottle of bourbon on the table and Kill Bill Vol. 1 on the television. I’ve got to work tomorrow. Uma Thurman is trying to wiggle her big toe. There are weird clicking sounds in the kitchen that I can’t seem to find a way to stop no matter how I stack the filthy dishes in the sink.

When I was a kid, I’d play with my toys under the tree for the entire week after Christmas. I remember playing with a my new Punisher van in the space under the tree branches, beside the wall. It is a good memory. Christmas is better earlier in life.

I got my brother two action figures for Christmas. He’ s six. I’m in my 20s. Both the toys have spring-loaded projectiles. One is a Transformer. The other is a stealth-flavoured Venom. I hope he likes them. Kids might not play action figures any more.

Christmas, treat everybody as well as it has treated me.

Sincerely,

Fergis T. McGillicuddy

PS: Turns out the weird clicking noises in the kitchen were the sounds of the fridge dying. Now everything smells like rotting beef. Its red juice covers the freezer. Sick.

Happy Birthday. It’s funny that you were born on Remembrance Day, a day of reflection on humankind’s worst failures at maintaining civility. We reflect on the cost of those failures on men and women. Most of them innocent and helpless.

This year, I forgot about wearing a poppy. I regret that. I didn’t go to the Cenotaph for a service either. I stood in the centre of the produce/salad-dressing aisle in a downtown Safeway during the moment of silence. A voice, presumably the manager’s, came over the intercom. It told us to have a moment of silence.

I did. Someone asked if they needed red peppers. A man in a motorized wheel chair wheeled past, thanking me for moving out of his way. Then the voice returned. It thanked us for being silent. Everybody started shopping again.

Thank you for making me remember that people can be better to people than people have been in the past.